Literacy
Poster Creation Description of Task This task involves students working in groups to summarise the information from a text about the adaptations of an Australian organism and create a poster to communicate the information. The text contains information about the environment in which the organism lives as well as a number of adaptations and explanations of how they help them survive or reproduce in their environment. The task is broken into three sections: - Reading and Highlighting: In this section the students absorb the information and highlight any bits of key information, such as the function of the adaptations or environment in which the organism is found. - Collecting and summarising: The students rewrite the adaptations, and how it helps the organism, into their books to show that they understand the content. -Poster creation and presentation: The students then put this information onto a poster and present it to the class, explaining how the adaptation is useful to the organism. The task is designed to help students practice summarisation and reading comprehension skills. They are also developing communication skills by creating and presenting a poster. Moreover, the activity is seen as a fun, creative challenge for the students. Relevant Content Statement Stage 4 LW1 ''' There are differences within and between groups of organisms; classification helps organise this diversity. f. Students explain how some features of Australian plants and animals are adaptations for survival and reproduction in their environment. Relevant Syllabus Outcomes '''SC4-9WS '''A student presents science ideas, findings and information to a given audience using appropriate scientific language, text types and representations '''SC4-14LW A student relates the structure and function of living things to their classification, survival and reproduction. Differentiation The task is designed as a group activity in order to assist ESL students with the task. While the large amount of text might seem daunting to some students, they are able to work with their peers to decipher the text. Students with more advanced literacy skills are able to highlight and point out information to struggling students and they all work together to summarise it. The summarisation is the key step as it allows the information to be broken down into chunks manageable by students with lower literacy abilities, while still allowing them to practice their reading comprehension skills with the group. The Resource The following links feature the instructions for the students as well as information sheets on Australian organisms that can be downloaded for use in this exercise. The instructions: The Adaptations: Video Comprehension Description of Task This task involves students watching a video and answering some simple questions based on the information provided. The task is reasonably simple and is designed as a basic homework task to get students thinking about fibre optic cables. While this activity can be conducted in class, the video can be watched multiple times by students who struggle with accessing the information and thus lends itself well to an individual homework problem. The students are asked to watch a video about fibre optic cables and answer specific questions using information presented in that video. The task is designed to provide students skills in listening and information gathering by requiring them engage with spoken communication and diagrams and extract specific points to put it into a written form. The activity is basically an adaptation of lecture style dictation, however students are made aware of the key concepts they need to look for and are able to pursue it at their own pace. Relevant Content Statements Stage 5 PW1 Energy transfer through different mediums can be explained using wave and particle models. Students: e. relate the properties of different types of radiation in the electromagnetic spectrum to their uses in everyday life, including communications technology f. describe the occurrence and some applications of absorption, reflection and refraction in everyday situations Relevant Syllabus Outcomes SC5-10PW A student applies models, theories and laws to explain situations involving energy, force and motion. Differentiation The task is designed as an at home activity to accommodate for students with hearing impairment or difficulty in understanding the language fluently. By allowing the students to watch the video multiple times and at their own pace, it allows them to take as long as they need to extract the information. They can even vary the volume or use subtitles to assist with hearing impairment. These approaches are still possible to use in a classroom setting, however playing it multiple times for these individual students can delay the rest of the class or lead them to misbehaviour. The Resource The video can be found at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MwMkBET_5I The question sheet made for the video can be downloaded here: Sentence Matching Description of Task The sentence matching task involves forming correct sentences from the fragments provided. There are three columns containing either the beginning, middle or end of a sentence, and students are required to match them together to form a complete sentence describing a form of energy. The task is rather basic and works well for teaching early stage 4 students about the different energy types while also practicing sentence formation and grammar. There are two ways in which a student can figure out the pairing; either by using content knowledge to assist them in obtaining the correct sentences (for example, they might choose all three boxes that relate to gravity to identify the correct beginning, middle and end), or they can use their literacy skills to assist them in obtaining content knowledge (for example, a student may choose the boxes by what phrasing sounds most correct and thus end up with a complete description of a type of energy). Once they choose the pairs, the students must then write out the sentences in order to practice writing proper statements. Relevant Content Statements Stage 4 PW3 Energy appears in different forms including movement (kinetic energy), heat and potential energy, and causes change within systems. Students: a. identify objects that possess energy because of their motion (kinetic) or because of other properties (potential). e. investigate some everyday energy transformations that cause change within systems, including motion, electricity, heat, sound and light. Relevant Syllabus Outcomes SC4-11PW A student discusses how scientific understanding and technological developments have contributed to finding solutions to problems involving energy transfers and transformations. Differentiation This task can be quite daunting for students with poor content knowledge or with difficulty in grammar and sentence formation (such as students with learning difficulties or from the LBOTE category). To accomodate for this, each box had been labelled with a letter, number or roman numeral. The teacher can use these to provide students with the correct combinations (for example, A-4-vi form a correct sentence) and have them write out the sentences based on this information. By doing this, students who would have otherwise have struggled are able to write out the complete statements and gain experience in proper sentence formation. The Resource The resource, along with teacher answers can be downloaded through this link: